The thing I am most excited to try is creating new looks by creating abstract art for backgrounds.  This website, http://www.webdesignerwall.com/ has a demo on how to do this.  The article tells how you use the warp and twirl tool in the program Illustrator.  Cover the entire canvas with a large box colored with blue gradient and then lock the layer.  Create two long rectangles in a new layer, one black and one hot pink.   Use the twirl tool while both rectangles are selected.  Rotate the object 45 degrees and place it in the upper right corner of the page.  Draw a red circle and use the twirl tool on it too.  Place it at the tail end of the previous design.  Create another circle smaller than the first and fill it with sun colored gradient.  Use twirl tool on edge of that circle too.  You can continue to follow the instructions to create cool art with a fireball shape, electric like strokes, overlay circles with dark glowing circles.  How cool is that!

But let’s talk about why we don’t set goals. 

Sometimes we don’t know where to begin.  We need to find someone who knows more than us to guide us.  It might be a mentor, or someone who has been ‘there’ already. We might sign up to take a specialty class that will help us in our field.    

Frequently we don’t want to take responsibility in an area of our life.  Maybe we would rather blame circumstances or others for our lack of progress.  It is easier and requires less effort from us but does it get us where we really want to be?

Often we do not realize the importance of goal setting.  We don’t really believe setting goals will help us achieve what we want in life but we would never choose to get on an airplane that didn’t have a planned destination.  We need goals to aim for.  Goals give us something to check our progress against.  It takes more time initially to develop goals but helps us ensure a desirable outcome.

The main reason we don’t set goals is the FEAR of FAILURE.   We decide we would rather sacrifice our dreams than feel the pain of failure ever again.   Eventually, however, the feelings of regret and loss of dreams becomes greater than the fear of failure.  We decide to try, but is it too late?  Has too much time gone by?

Now is the time to pursue those dreams by setting some goals!

I will close with a quote from Brian Tracy,

“If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?  Whatever your answer, start doing it now.”

A first time viewing of a website may only last seconds.  What a user perceives in those first few seconds determines whether they stay or eventually come back to a particular website.

I did the five-second usability test on a friend with this website: http://www.funkyshop.com/index.html.  He commented that the lower part of the screen was obscured and that the photos were too large on the sock page.  He could see that funky things were for sale and could see photos and logos.  The home page needs much work.  There is lots of white space surrounding the body of the website.  It does not look professional or sophisticated.  This causes the user to question the trustworthiness of the website.  This will affect whether people will trust enough to enter their credit card numbers for purchasing.  Text on left side is too small and unappealing.  The cursor has a series of little balls follow it everywhere you move it which is very cheesy and unprofessional.  The main body is so full of ‘stuff’ that the user is left wading through to find something they want.

A very visually pleasing website is http://www.visithoustontexas.com/.   There is a large graphic spelling out HOUSTON with pictures of things seen in Houston with the nighttime cityscape in the back ground. It looks exciting and interesting.  There is a simple navigation bar above this graphic with links to pages containing info a potential Houston visitor might want to access.  There is a sidebar with calendar events.  The web designer has done a good job incorporating the tasks a visitor might want to accomplish along with their goals of encouraging tourists to come to Houston.  There is also a search box at the top right corner to help users to find exactly what they are looking for. The only thing I see that I might change is the area in lower right section of the page.  It is a little busy looking.

Another well planed website is  http://www.bbc.co.uk/.   It is very organized and clear.  It looks completely professional and trustworthy.  The goal to allow users to find the news they are interested in is accomplished as the news is broken up into topics such as top stories, sports, television, radio, etc.  There is a search box prominently displayed at the top. I moved through several screens to Dr. Who on BBC America.  At that point, I no longer saw an obvious link back to BBC home page.  I would change that so that the user could always immediately get back to home page. 

The website  http://www.digitalpoint.com/main.html makes you really have to look around to try to figure out what their angle is.  What are they selling or providing? It doesn’t make me want to stay.  The navigation on the left is too small.  The main area looks cluttered.  It looks basic and boring.  The company logo is way too small. The webpage makes poor use of space as it only fills half the screen.  When using this website I am unsure of where I am, and I never know where I have been.  I am left feeling very insecure about the validity of this site.  According to web design gurus a web page should have a beginning, middle, and an end.

The website,  http://artisticproduction.com/store/index.htmlis a great example of a poor website.  This website has no clear direction.  One does not know where they are or where there is to go. The user is left guessing and digging to find out what this website is all about.  The impression the user is left with is one of complete unprofessionalism and confusion.  No user would sit through this website and read trying to decipher what it was all about.

A good homepage will have clear navigation and will tell a story that includes a beginning, middle and an end. It will be visually pleasing while well functioning.  The homepage will show a user what that company does, that it can be trusted all while allowing the user to quickly find what they are looking for.

Just like in relationships, in the world of web design poor choices can impair the functioning of a website.  Some things that can greatly affect websites are how the designer chooses to organize the information, the amount of white space, location and distinction of the main title, number of columns and number and quality of graphics on a page.  The choice to do thorough research to determine the kind of users the website will draw is also very important.

In every situation, leader or follower, designer or developer we have a choice in the direction we go that determines our ultimate outcome.  I went to one of my children’s back to school nights recently and on the wall of one the classrooms was a poster that read “Let the choices you make today be choices you can live with tomorrow”.

• I am unsure of which direction to head that this time.  I need a job that will pay the most I can get.  That might be web development.  However, I love playing with colors and details like type, graphics, and photos so maybe web design.  I think this decision has much to do with my aptitude for each.

Which aspects of web-design interest you the most?

• I would like to try a little of frontend design and some of the backend development.  This is all a new experience for me and I am looking forward to discovering which aspect interests me most.

What current skills do you have that will be useful in creating web pages?

• I have minimal skills. I was proficient at AutoCAD and some Illustration programs about 15 years ago.  I do have life experiences to draw on to create pages that relate to others in life.  I am very good at organizing things.

Which skills will you need to brush up on?

• I used to create graphics for engineers but those ‘skills’ are long since old.  This is essentially all new for me.

Which hardware and software tools do you already have for web design?

• I have a Dell Laptop, Inspiron 1525 with 2 GB RAM soon to be upgraded.  I also have a very nice digital SLR 8 megapixel camera and a point and shoot 10 megapixel camera.

Which tools do you need to buy? Which tools would you like to buy eventually?

• I have ordered CS4 Web and 2 x 2 GB RAM.  Eventually I would love to have a large screen laptop to work from.

I have begun reading articles on web design versus web development.  Many people say that a web designer makes the site look pretty while the web developer makes it work.   Another user discussion claims that a web developer starts a web site from the ground up while a web designer creates a “skin” and then uses another program like Dreamweaver to make it come to life.  One writer suggests that Web Developers are much more employable when they have a degree in computer science.  Here is an interesting link to an article titled How To Design a Website by Eric Miller: http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/websitedesign/ss/website.htm 

All this makes me realize that I must consider, am I creative or more of a structural, exact, programming kind of person?  Will it be Web Development or Web Design for me?